The War Of The End Of The World (28 page)

“I presume that I’m the dark genius behind this conspiracy,” the baron muttered.

“You’ve had more mud slung at you than anyone else,” the owner-publisher of the
Diário da Bahia
said. “You handed Canudos over to the rebels and took a trip to Europe to meet with the émigrés of the Empire and plan the rebellion. It’s even been said that there was a ‘fund for subversion,’ that you put up half the money and England the other half.”

“A fifty-fifty partner of the British Crown,” the baron murmured. “Good heavens, they overestimate me.”

“Do you know who they’re sending to put down the restorationist rebellion?” asked Deputy Lélis Piedades, who was sitting on the arm of the governor’s chair. “Colonel Moreira César and the Seventh Regiment.”

The Baron de Canabrava thrust his head forward slightly and blinked.

“Colonel Moreira César?” He sat lost in thought for some time, moving his lips from time to time as though speaking under his breath. Then he turned to Gumúcio and said: “Perhaps you’re right, Adalberto. This might well be a bold maneuver on the part of the Jacobins. Ever since the death of Marshal Floriano, Colonel Moreira César has been their top card, the hero they’re counting on to regain power.”

Again he heard all of them trying to talk at once, but this time he did not stop them. As his friends offered their opinions and argued, he sat there pretending to be listening but with his mind elsewhere, a habit he readily fell into when a discussion bored him or his own thoughts seemed to him to be more important than what he was hearing. Colonel Moreira César! It did not augur well that he was being sent to Bahia. He was a fanatic and, like all fanatics, dangerous. The baron remembered the cold-blooded way in which he had put down the federalist revolution in Santa Catarina four years before, and how, when the Federal Congress asked him to appear before that body and give an account of the executions by firing squad that he had ordered, he had answered with a telegram that was a model of terseness and arrogance: “No.” He recalled that among those sent to their deaths by the colonel there in the South there had been a marshal, a baron, and an admiral that he knew, and that on the advent of the Republic, Marshal Floriano Peixoto had ordered him to purge the army of all officers known to have had ties with the monarchy. The Seventh Infantry Regiment against Canudos! “Adalberto is right,” he thought. “It’s the height of the grotesque.” He forced himself to listen once more.

“It’s not the Sebastianists in the interior he’s come to liquidate—it’s us,” Adalberto was saying. “He’s coming to liquidate you, Luiz Viana, the Autonomist Party, and hand Bahia over to Epaminondas Gonçalves, who is the Jacobins’ man here.”

“There’s no reason to kill yourselves, gentlemen,” the baron interrupted him, raising his voice slightly. He was serious now, no longer smiling, and spoke in a firm voice. “There’s no reason to kill yourselves,” he repeated. He looked slowly about the room, certain that his friends would find his serenity contagious. “Nobody’s going to take what’s ours away from us. Haven’t we present, right here in this room, the political power of Bahia, the municipal government of Bahia, the judiciary of Bahia, the journalism of Bahia? Aren’t the majority of the landed property, the possessions, the herds of Bahia right here? Even Colonel Moreira César can’t change that. Finishing us off would be to finish off Bahia, gentlemen. Epaminondas Gonçalves and his followers are an outlandish curiosity in these parts. They have neither the means nor the men nor the experience to take over the reins of Bahia even if they were placed square in their hands. The horse would throw them immediately.”

He paused and someone solicitously handed him a glass of fruit punch. He savored each sip, recognizing the pleasantly sweet taste of guava.

“We’re overjoyed, naturally, at your optimism,” he heard Luiz Viana say. “You’ll grant, however, that we’ve suffered reverses and that we must act as quickly as possible.”

“There is no doubt of that,” the baron agreed. “We shall do so. For the moment, what we’re going to do is send Colonel Moreira César a telegram immediately, welcoming his arrival and offering him the support of the Bahia authorities and of the Autonomist Party. Is it not in fact in our interest to have him come to rid us of the thieves who steal our land, of the fanatics who sack haciendas and won’t allow our peasants to work the fields in peace? And this very day we’re also going to begin taking up a collection that will be handed over to the Federal Army to be used in the fight against the bandits.”

He waited until the murmur of voices died down, taking another sip of punch. It was hot and his forehead was wet with sweat.

“I remind you that, for years now, our entire policy has been to prevent the central government from interfering too zealously in Bahia affairs,” Luiz Viana finally said.

“That’s all well and good, but the only policy left us now, unless we choose to kill ourselves, is to demonstrate to the entire country that we are not the enemies of the Republic or of the sovereignty of Brazil,” the baron said dryly. “We must put a stop to this intrigue at once and there is no other way to do so. We’ll give Moreira César and the Seventh Regiment a splendid reception. It’ll be our welcome ceremony—not the Republican Party’s.”

He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and waited once again for the murmur of voices, even louder than before, to die down.

“It’s too abrupt a change,” Adalberto de Gumúcio said, and the baron saw several heads behind him nod in agreement.

“In the Assembly, in the press, our entire strategy has been aimed at avoiding federal intervention,” Deputy Rocha Seabra chimed in.

“In order to defend Bahia’s interests we must remain in power and in order to remain in power we must change our policy, at least for the moment,” the baron replied softly. And as if the objections that were raised were of no importance, he went on laying down guidelines. “We landowners must collaborate with the colonel. Quarter his regiment, provide it with guides, furnish it supplies. Along with Moreira César, we’ll be the ones who do away with the monarchist conspirators financed by Queen Victoria.” He simulated a smile as he again mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. “It’s a ridiculous farce, but we have no other choice. And when the colonel has liquidated the poor
cangaceiros
and plaster saints of Canudos we’ll stage all sorts of grand celebrations to commemorate the defeat of the British Empire and the Bragança dynasty.”

No one applauded him; no one smiled. They were all silent and ill at ease. But as he observed them the baron saw that already there were some who were admitting to themselves, however reluctantly, that there was nothing else they could do.

“I’ll go to Calumbi,” the baron said. “I hadn’t planned on doing so just yet. But it’s necessary. I myself will place everything that the Seventh Regiment needs at its disposal. All the landowners in the region should do likewise. Let Moreira César see whom that part of the country belongs to, who is in command there.”

The atmosphere was very tense and everyone wanted to ask questions, to reply to these remarks. But the baron deemed that this was not the proper time to discuss the matter further. After they had eaten and drunk throughout the afternoon and into the night, it would be easier to make them forget their doubts, their scruples.

“Let us join the ladies and have lunch,” he proposed, rising to his feet. We’ll talk afterward. Politics shouldn’t be everything in life. Pleasant things ought to have their place too.”

Transformed into a camp, Queimadas is a beehive of activity in the strong wind that covers it with dust: orders are barked out and troops hurriedly fall into formation amid cavalrymen with drawn sabers who are shouting and gesticulating. Suddenly bugle calls cleave the dawn and the curious bystanders run along the bank of the Itapicuru to watch the stretch of bone-dry
caatinga
that disappears on the horizon in the direction of Monte Santo: the first corps of the Seventh Regiment are setting out and the wind carries away the marching song that the soldiers are singing at the tops of their lungs.

Inside the railroad station, since first light, Colonel Moreira César has been studying topographical maps, giving instructions, signing dispatches, and receiving the duty reports of the various battalions. The drowsy correspondents are harnessing their mules and horses and loading the baggage cart outside the door of the station—all of them except the scrawny reporter from the
Jornal de Notícias
, who, with his portable desk beneath his arm and his inkwell fastened to his sleeve, is prowling about the place trying to make his way to the colonel’s side. Despite the early hour, the six members of the Municipal Council are on hand to bid the commander of the Seventh Regiment farewell. They are sitting waiting on a bench, and the swarm of officers and aides coming and going around them is paying no more attention to them than to the huge posters of the Progressivist Republican Party and the Bahia Autonomist Party that are still hanging from the ceiling. But they are amused as they watch the scarecrow-thin journalist, who, taking advantage of a moment of calm, has finally managed to approach Moreira César.

“May I ask you a question, Colonel?” he says in his thin, nasal voice.

“The press conference was yesterday,” the officer answers, examining him from head to foot as though he were a being from another planet. But the creature’s outlandish appearance or his audacity causes the colonel to relent: “All right, then. What’s your question?”

“It’s about the prisoners,” the reporter murmurs, both his squint eyes fixed on him. “It has come to my attention that you are taking thieves and murderers into the regiment. I went down to the jail last night with the two lieutenants, and saw them enlist seven of the inmates.”

“That’s correct,” Moreira César says, looking him up and down inquisitively. “But what’s your question?”

“The question is: Why? What’s the reason for promising those criminals their freedom?”

“They know how to fight,” Colonel Moreira César says. And then, after a pause: “A criminal is a case of excessive human energy that flows in the wrong direction. War can channel it in the right one. They know why they’re fighting, and that makes them brave, even heroic at times. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. And you’ll see it, too, if you get to Canudos. Because”—he inspects him from head to foot once again—“from the looks of you, you’re likely not to last one day in the backlands.”

“I’ll try my best to hold up, Colonel.” The nearsighted journalist withdraws and Colonel Tamarindo and Major Cunha Matos, who were standing waiting behind him, step forward.

“The vanguard has just moved out,” Colonel Tamarindo says.

The major explains that Captain Ferreira Rocha’s patrols have reconnoitered the route to Tanquinho and that there is no trace of
jagunços
, but that the road is full of sudden drops and rough stretches that are going to make it difficult to get the artillery through. Ferreira Rocha’s scouts are looking to see if there is some way around these obstacles, and in any case a team of sappers has also gone on ahead to level the road.

“Did you make sure the prisoners were separated?” Moreira César asks him.

“I assigned them to different companies and expressly forbade them to see each other or talk to each other,” the major assures him.

“The animal convoy detail has also left,” Colonel Tamarindo says. And after a moment’s hesitation: “Febrônio de Brito was very upset. He had a crying fit.”

“Any other officer would have committed suicide” is Moreira César’s only comment. He rises to his feet and an orderly hastens to gather up the papers on the table that the colonel has been using as a desk. Followed by his staff officers, Moreira César heads toward the exit. People rush forward to see him, but before he reaches the door he remembers something, shifts course, and walks over to the bench where the municipal councillors of Queimadas are waiting. They rise to their feet. They are simple folk, farmers or humble tradesmen, who are dressed in their best clothes and have shined their big clumsy shoes as a mark of their respect. They are carrying their sombreros in their hands, and are plainly ill at ease.

“Thanks for your hospitality and collaboration, gentlemen.” The colonel includes all of them in a single conventionally polite, almost blank sweep of his eyes. “The Seventh Regiment will not forget the warm welcome it received in Queimadas. I trust you will look after the troops that remain here.”

They haven’t time to answer, for instead of bidding each of them farewell individually, he salutes the group as a whole, raising his right hand to his kepi, turns round, and heads for the door.

The appearance of Moreira César and his escort outside in the street, where the regiment is lined up in formation—the ranks of men disappear from sight in the distance, one company behind another as far as the railroad tracks—is greeted by applause and cheers. The sentinels stop the curious from coming any closer. The handsome white horse whinnies, impatient to be off. Tamarindo, Cunha Matos, Olímpio de Castro, and the escort mount their horses, and the press correspondents, already in the saddle, surround the colonel. He is rereading the telegram to the Supreme Government that he has dictated: “The Seventh Regiment beginning this day, 8 February, its campaign in defense of Brazilian sovereignty. Not one case of indiscipline among the troops. Our one fear that Antônio Conselheiro and the Restorationist rebels will not be awaiting us in Canudos. Long live the Republic.” He initials it so that the telegraph operator can send it off immediately. He then signals to Captain Olímpio de Castro, who gives an order to the buglers. They sound a piercing, mournful call that rends the early-morning air.

“It’s the regimental call,” Cunha Matos says to the gray-haired correspondent next to him.

“Does it have a name?” the shrill, irksome little voice of the man from the
Jornal de Notícias
asks. He has equipped his mule with a large leather pouch for his portable writing desk, thus giving the animal the air of a marsupial.

“Call to charge and slit throats,” Moreira César answers. “The regiment has sounded it ever since the war with Paraguay, when for lack of ammunition it was obliged to attack with sabers, bayonets, and knives.”

With a wave of his right hand he gives the order to march. Mules, men, horses, carts, artillery pieces begin moving off, amid clouds of dust that a strong wind sends their way. As they leave Queimadas, the various corps of the column are grouped close together, and only the colors of the pennons carried by their standard-bearers differentiate them. Soon the uniforms of officers and men become indistinguishable, for the strong wind that is blowing forces all of them to lower the visors of their caps and kepis and many of them to tie handkerchiefs over their mouths. Little by little, battalions, companies, and platoons march off in the distance and what appeared on leaving the station to be a compact living creature, a long serpent slithering over the cracked ground, amid dry dead trunks of thornbushes, breaks up into independent members, smaller serpents that in turn draw farther and farther apart, losing sight of each other for a time and then descrying each other again as they wind their way across the tortuous terrain. Cavalrymen constantly move back and forth, establishing a circulatory system of information, orders, inquiries between the parts of that scattered whole whose head, after a few hours’ march, can already make out in the distance the first village on their line of march: Pau Seco. The vanguard, as Colonel Moreira César sees through his field glasses, has left traces of its passage there among the huts: a small signal flag, and two men who are doubtless waiting for him with messages.

The cavalry escort rides a few yards ahead of the colonel and his staff officers; behind these latter, exotic parasites on this uniformed body, are the correspondents, who, like many of the officers, have dismounted and are chatting together as they walk along. Precisely in the middle of the column is the battery of cannon, drawn by teams of bullocks that are urged on by some twenty men under the command of an officer wearing on his sleeves the red diamond-shaped emblem of the artillery corps: Captain José Agostinho Salomão da Rocha. The shouts of the men, to spur the animals on or get them back on the trail when they wander off it, are the only sounds to be heard. The troops talk in low voices to save their strength, or march along in silence, scrutinizing this flat, semibarren landscape that they are seeing for the first time. Many of them are sweating, what with the hot sun, their heavy uniforms, and the weight of their knapsacks and rifles, and following orders, they try not to lift their canteens to their mouths too often since they know that the first battle to be waged has already begun: that against thirst. At mid-morning they overtake the supply train and leave it behind them; the cattle, sheep, and goats are being herded along by a company of soldiers and cowhands who have started off the night before; at their head, grim-faced, moving his lips as though refuting or setting forth an argument in an imaginary dialogue is Major Febrônio de Brito. At the rear of the line of march is the cavalry troop, led by a dashing, martial officer: Captain Pedreira Franco. Moreira César has been riding along for some time without saying a word, and his adjutants fall silent, too, so as not to interrupt their commanding officer’s train of thought. On reaching the straight stretch of road leading into Pau Seco, the colonel looks at his watch.

“At this rate, that Canudos bunch is going to give us the slip,” he says, leaning over toward Tamarindo and Cunha Matos. “We’re going to have to leave the heavy equipment behind in Monte Santo and lighten the men’s knapsacks. It’s certain that we have more than enough ammunition. It would be too bad to go all the way there and find nothing but vultures.”

The regiment has with it fifteen million rifle cartridges and seventy artillery shells, in carts drawn by mules. This is the principal reason why they are making such slow progress. Colonel Tamarindo remarks that once they have passed Monte Santo they may advance even more slowly, since according to the two engineer corps officers, Domingo Alves Leite and Alfredo do Nascimento, the terrain is even rougher from there on.

“Not to mention the fact that from that point on there are going to be skirmishes,” he adds. He is exhausted from the heat and keeps mopping his congested face with a colored handkerchief. He is past retirement age and nothing obliges him to be here, but he has insisted on accompanying the regiment.

“We mustn’t allow them time to get away,” Colonel Moreira César mutters. This is something that his officers have heard him say many times since they boarded the train in Rio. Despite the heat he is not sweating. He has a pale little face, eyes with an intense, sometimes obsessive gaze, and rarely smiles; his voice is very nearly a monotone, thin and flat, as though he were keeping a tight rein on it as is recommended in the case of a skittish horse. “The minute they discover we’re getting close they’ll bolt and the campaign will be a resounding failure. We cannot allow that to happen.” He looks once again at his companions, who listen to him without saying a word in reply. “Southern Brazil has now realized that the Republic is a
fait accompli
. We’ve brought that home to them. But here in the state of Bahia there are still a great many aristocrats who haven’t yet resigned themselves to that fact. Especially since the death of the marshal; with a civilian without ideals heading the country, they think they can turn the clock back. They won’t accept the irreversible till they’ve had a good lesson. And now is the time to give them one, gentlemen.”

“They’re scared to death, sir,” Cunha Matos says. “Doesn’t the fact that the Autonomist Party organized the reception for us in Salvador and took up a collection to defend the Republic prove they’ve got their tails between their legs?”

“The crowning touch was the triumphal arch in the Calçada Station calling us saviors,” Tamarindo recalls. “Just a few days before, they were violently opposed to the intervention of the Federal Army in Bahia, and then they toss flowers at us in the streets and the Baron de Canabrava sends us word that he’s coming to Calumbi to place his hacienda at the disposal of the regiment.”

He gives a hearty laugh, but Moreira César does not find his good humor infectious.

“That means that the baron is more intelligent than his friends,” the colonel replies. “He couldn’t keep Rio from intervening in an out-and-out case of insurrection. So then he opts for patriotism, in order not to be outdone by the Republicans. His aim is to distract and confuse people for the moment so as to be in a position to deal us another blow later. The baron has been well schooled: in the English school, gentlemen.”

They find Pau Seco empty of people, possessions, animals. Two soldiers, standing next to the branchless tree trunk atop which the signal flag left by the vanguard is fluttering, salute. Moreira César reins his mount in and looks around at the mud huts, the interiors of which are visible through the doors left ajar or fallen from their hinges. A toothless, barefoot woman, dressed in a tunic full of holes through which her dark skin shows, emerges from one of the huts. Two rickety children, with glassy eyes, one of whom is naked and has a swollen belly, cling to her, staring at the soldiers in stupefaction. From astride his horse, Moreira César looks down at them: they strike him as the very image of helplessness. His face contorts in an expression in which sadness, anger, and rancor are commingled.

Still looking at them, he gives one of his escorts an order: “Have some food brought them.” And he turns to his adjutants: “Do you see the state they keep the people on their lands in?”